Oppositional Federalism

Oppositional federalism is a framework for how a state can lawfully oppose a federal government that has broken from the Constitution. Christopher Armitage developed it and coined the term. It has four tiers, and a state can act on any of them at once.

In the first tier, uncooperative federalism, a state declines to assist federal enforcement: no state officers, no state data, no state jails for federal work the state objects to. The Supreme Court settled the state’s right to do this in Printz v. United States in 1997. In the second, soft secession, the state builds its own institutions and revenue so federal money and federal services stop being leverage. In the third, oppositional federalism proper, the state goes on offense: its attorney general prosecutes federal agents who break state law, its legislature writes the model bills on this site, and its courts hear the cases. In the fourth, constitutional non-compliance, a state refuses a federal order it holds to be unconstitutional, the step Abraham Lincoln took when he ignored Chief Justice Roger Taney in 1861.

The working papers that build the framework are on Google Scholar. This page collects the articles, the model legislation and the calls to action that put it to work.